life, humor, work, and mommyhood

That Time I Didn’t Poop for 15 Days…

I told you all about my Stupid Broken Neck a few posts back. It caused me more pain and misery than I have ever experienced in my life. Unfortunately, most of the pain wasn’t coming from my neck. It was coming from an area a little lower.

When I went to the ER the first time with neck pain, the doctor gave me a great deal of morphine and Valium to help with my suspected “muscle spasm”. I was also sent home with prescriptions for Vicodin and Valium which I took every four hours for three days. I don’t know about you guys, but narcotics do things to my bowels. Very bad things. I become a plugged up, backed up nightmare. Sadly, I was too high on pain meds to really care about what was going on down below when the whole situation began.

Three days later, I was seen in the ER again, prescribed more narcotics, and given even more through an IV. At this point, my neck was hurting so much that I hadn’t really thought about the fact that it had been four days since I pooped. Four days. I’m usually an every morning pooper. One sip of coffee and I’m emptying my bowels. Not now. Not this time. Nope. No way.

After three more days, I was seen in the ER again and the doctors determined that I needed surgery to repair my neck. I was given more narcotics in an IV and prescribed many, many more for home. This time it was much stronger stuff to adequately treat the girl with the Stupid Broken Neck. We are at Day 7 of no poops at this point. Not even a little. Now, I’m starting to get uncomfortable and also starting to realize that, even in my narcotic induced haze, I should really be going. I try. I take ExLax and Colase and glycerin suppositories. Nothing. No movement. I start to look like I’m in my first trimester.

On Day 9 of no poops, another strange side effect began. I realized that I could not pee either. No pees. No poops. I was drinking water like crazy because narcotics make me dehydrated. After nearly 24 hours of not urinating, my husband dragged me kicking and screaming to the local Immediate Care. The nurse kept asking if I was pregnant. Nope. Just a poop and pee baby waiting to be birthed, lady. They gave me a catheter and drained nearly 3,000 ccs of urine from my bladder. (FYI…A normal human bladder should only hold about 2500 ccs.) I was sent home with a feeling of relief and a urine bag strapped to my thigh.

I saw my regular doctor on Day 10. He removed the catheter and prescribed the same prep solution that you’d drink for a colonoscopy. I drank it. Nothing happened. Nothing, you guys. I’ve drank this mess before and have pooped constantly for 24 hours. This time nothing. I just got more miserable, more desperate. Now, I was a gurgling, gassy, constipated, neck brace wearing, crazy person.

On Day 12, my husband had to call an ambulance because I nearly fainted in front of my children. Why? I hadn’t peed for another 24 hours. I was screaming and begging the EMTs for a catheter which they do not carry on their rig. (Um, WTF?) When they tried giving me more morphine in the ambulance, I nearly punched someone to keep them from inserting another IV. If you’ve never screamed at strangers “Please help me poop!”, good for you…I can no longer say the same.

At the hospital, I was given a catheter again and sent home with another bag. This time, they didn’t remove it because I was scheduled to have my neck surgery the following day. At Day 13, I had surgery on my neck. My doctor did not allow me IV pain medications (after SPINAL SURGERY, y’all) or anything other than a liquid diet while in the hospital. I was pissed and mean and hateful. I begged to go home.

I was released to go home on Day 14 because I was somehow miraculously able to produce a thimble of urine for the discharge nurse. However, no one bothered to ask if I’d pooped.

I went home catheter-free and still packed with two full weeks worth of doodie. I looked more pregnant than I did when I was actually 9 months pregnant. It’s also important to mention that I was wearing a neck brace and walking with a walker. (Sexy, right?)

On Day 15, I woke up and realized that something had to be done about this situation because I lost the ability to urinate again. I tried giving myself the “two finger sweep”, an enema, more stool softeners, more laxatives, more suppositories. I managed to do nothing except give myself a sore ass. I dissolved into tears on the bathroom floor. My sobs went something like “Please, God. If there is a God, please make me poop. Please.” I have never wanted something so gross so badly.

At this point, my loving husband decided it was time to take matters into his own hands. He left the house and returned a few minutes later with a jumbo enema and some rubber gloves. Now, keep in mind, we had only been married for four months and had only known each other for six months during this whole ordeal. We didn’t have years and years to get to know one another’s disgusting body habits. Thankfully, I was desperate and he didn’t care.

The instructions on an enema say to lie on your right side, insert, and squeeze. You are then supposed to “wait until you feel the urge to go and quickly hop up onto the toilet”. This is a lot easier said than done when you are wearing a neck brace and have lost most of the feeling on the right side of your body. Still, we continued on.

My loving husband inserted the plastic tube and despite my screams to “go slow” emptied the liter bottle into my colon in about 10 seconds. Within two minutes, I felt it coming but had no ability to simply “hop up” on my own. My hubs heaved my chubby ass up while I proceeded to blow 24 hours worth of urine and 15 days worth of packed in poo all over our powder room. (Don’t ask why we didn’t do this in our upstairs bathroom instead of the one that our guests use. We were desperate and not thinking clearly.) He sat me on the toilet while I yelled, “Get some towels!! So many towels!” I literally pooped for an hour and tried not to take in the destruction I had caused in the powder room. My loving hubs stood by the closed door and shouted words of encouragement like I was a two-year-old learning to use the potty.

After the ordeal was complete, he carried me to the bathtub and cleaned the sewage filled powder room. And, that is how I knew we would be together forever. If your man is willing to stick a rubber hose in your ass and clean your poop off the tile floor, you have found a keeper. Don’t be jealous.